


Higher Ground

by Constance



Category: Life on Mars
Genre: Banter, First Time, Humour, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-01
Updated: 2011-02-01
Packaged: 2017-10-15 06:58:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/158247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Constance/pseuds/Constance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Car trouble</p>
            </blockquote>





	Higher Ground

"Pissing moonlight!"

DCI Hunt kicked out viciously at one of the shadows lurking alongside the dirt track. The shadow refused to budge and Hunt swore loudly before turning his frustration on a softer target, namely Sam's shin.

"Ow! Give over, Guv. It's not my fault."

"Hmph. Your bloody lead, weren't it?"

"It was a good lead! We've blown the case wide-"

"Your idea to go haring out to the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night-"

"Six pm. Barely over the border. Derbyshire, in case-"

"You bleating 'it'll be just 'round the next corner-'"

"It was-"

"Which just so happens to be up a frigging mountain. And I wouldn't be at all surprised to find out it's your fault we have a full moon."

"Well that's just silly."

Gene kicked Sam's shin again, more petulant than vicious. The moon gave more than enough light for Sam to see the shrug that followed.

"Easier on me toes blaming you than that bloody rock. And there's no telling with you, Tyler. Can see you as one of those Druids, dancing 'round naked and summoning stuff."

Sam blinked. If that was the kind of thing Gene pondered while pretending to sleep through stake-outs he had depths - or at least crevices - that even Sam hadn't guessed at. "That's right," he agreed dryly. "I can control lunar cycles but I choose to hide myself amongst you lowly humans, getting kicked for no reason. This is my dream job - what every Druid wants out of life."

He dodged the next kick and Gene slumped against the side of the Cortina, apparently too disheartened to follow his miss with any real violence.

"What's wrong with the moon, anyway? At least we can see where we're going."

"Don't need me eyes to see we're not going anywhere." Gene waved an arm at the city, sprawled out in front of them, tantalizingly out of reach. "I _can_ see every two-bit blagger and scumbag in Greater Manchester and you know what that means, Tyler?"

"We could spend this time recording valuable evidence? I mean, every blagger-"

"Means they can see us." Gene ignored Sam's wit, which Sam decided was preferable to another kick. "Any one of those thieving pricks could look out of their window and see my beautiful baby-"

"Aw, Guv, didn't know you-"

"Laid out on display, halfway up a _frigging mountain._ "

"Well technically-"

"Shut it, Tyler. If a hill's too big to have a proper road then it's a frigging mountain, and you can shove 'technically' up your arse. I am _not_ in a good mood."

"And it's all my fault. Yeah, I get it. It's my fault you don't have a spare tyre."

"Too right. Had to take it out to fit you in the boot. Never got around to putting it back again."

Sam nodded sagely. "Also my fault, obviously. I remember the occasion distinctly, I had the temerity to be right. You know, Guv, you could stop whinging and just enjoy the scenery. Put the radio on or something."

"Have a flat battery to go with the flat tyre? And I do not whinge, Tyler. Whiney idiots like you whinge. I rant, and occasionally hit things."

"By things, you mean me."

"Well it's your fault, isn't it?"

"Obviously. I've spent weeks plotting, carefully orchestrating a reason to go up a slightly bumpy road that might possibly give you a flat. My mission in life is to mildly inconvenience you."

"Mildly? Pubs opened two hours ago."

"Well we passed one on the way up. Can't be much of a walk. We could go and have a pint while Ray's fetching up your spare."

Gene gave him such a look that Sam had to mentally check the last couple sentences, make sure he hadn't suggested they sacrifice the Cortina to the Druid overloads by mistake. "I'm not leaving her here on her own!"

"You'll just have to sit here and enjoy the view, then. Pretty, isn't it?"

Bathed in moonlight, the view was indeed nicer than Sam might have expected. Stuck in the city, unable to see past the next corner, Sam had once convinced himself he'd be able to walk to the end of his imaginary world. Fall off the edge and get back home. From up here, the whole of Greater Manchester and a good portion of Derbyshire laid out before him, the idea seemed ridiculous. Apparently his imagination stretched a hell of a long way into the unknown.

He could pick out the odd familiar landmark from his childhood, of course, but he'd never seen this view before. His mother never had a car, or the time, and while Sam must have driven through these hills a hundred times in recent years, by then it was a different city. Cleared of its derelict bomb sites and dwarfed by high rise office buildings. Improved, mostly, to Sam's way of thinking. But distance and dark hid the rubble and wreckage that scarred this Manchester, highlighted instead the brooding factory chimneys. A living industrial landscape that he'd never seen from the outside before.

"Pretty!" Gene snorted. He drew out the predictable hip flask, took a swig and passed it to Sam. "A nancy like you should be able to do better than bleeding 'pretty.' That there's the reason we do what we do. The struggling, pulsing mass of humanity we guard. Our respiration and inspiration. Hey! Don't you be wasting good whisky."

"Sorry." Sam choked a little more. Swiped at his nose until the whisky was gone and the burning starting to subside. "Maybe you could warn me the next time you're going to quote poetry. So I can prepare myself for the shock."

Gene took back his flask, wiped the mouth clean of the results of Sam's spluttering and took another swig. "No need. Next time'll be your funeral service. I'll read To a Louse. Think I'll bury you over there. Your grave can enjoy the view."

"You're in a fine mood this evening. Even by your standards."

"I've wasted two hours of my life chasing 'round the bleeding countryside-"

"Collecting essential evidence."

"-with a berk that can't read a map. My patch is all the way down there, and I'm not. It took that old hag half a day to get to the bleeding point, because some dickhead decided her bloody garden was far more interesting than his case, and I ran out of fags in the first ten minutes. Now we're stuck here for half the night while Pinky and Perky take my spare tyre on a guided tour of Derbyshire. Just when it can't get any worse, you go and call my city 'pretty.' If I had a spade I'd already be concealing your battered corpse. Under that tree over there."

Sam's months of experience enabled him to pick out the important words from Gene's rant. "Ah. You've run out of cigarettes."

"That's what I said. Christ, Tyler, we'll make a detective of you yet."

"Piss off." Sam fingered the half-full pack of Marlboro being flattened in his back pocket and considered his options. "We've got a breakthrough in the Mortimer case and you'll survive without your nightly poker game."

"Oh I'll survive," said Gene with nasty emphasis. "You'd better your chances by keeping your trap shut. From nowt to slim."

"I'll be quiet," Sam agreed meekly, turning away to hide his smile.

He decided, overall, he was having a good evening. His lead in the Mortimer case had paid off and now it was only a matter of time before they tracked down the man himself. 'Stuck up a mountain' made a nice change from the smoky boozer, certainly smelt nicer. A bad-tempered, nicotine deprived Gene was little different to the standard variety and, though he felt the perverseness of it, Sam enjoyed his company. Got a secret little kick out of having the man all to himself. Best of all, he got to be superior.

"Completely quiet. My lips are sealed. I'll not even mention the cigarettes in my pocket. I'm sure you wouldn't be interested in my disagreement with Ray earlier. You'd probably not approve of me confiscating his smokes and I wouldn't want to antagonise... Hey!"

Sam had hardly finished declaiming Gene's interest before the Guv was rifling through Sam's jacket pockets. Finding nothing he circumvented further searching, seized Sam by the lapels and gave him a shake. Sam laughed out his protest so naturally Gene punched him, though not hard enough to dent the Cortina or quite stop the laughter.

"Not so bright to tease a desperate man, Tyler."

"They're real," Sam protested. "Back pocket. Put me down and I'll-" But with his usual disregard for personal space Gene was already helping himself, large fingers scrabbling against tight denim. Sam froze, hoped Gene was too intent on his nicotine to notice. "Jeez. And you call _me_ Dorothy."

"Well you've just been promoted, Audrey. Christ, if your jeans were any tighter your arse'd be on the outside."

Having wrestled the pack out of Sam's pocket, Gene returned him to solid ground and extracted a rather squashed cigarette. He lit it and sucked with some concentration, eventually blowing out a huge wreath of smoke. "Tyler, I could kiss you."

Sam thought he deserved some kind of award for keeping his composure in the face of such provocation. "Well don't. You'd taste like an ashtray."

For his trouble Sam got Gene's next exhale square in the face. He wafted the smoke away and coughed pointedly. "Thanks. All that fresh air was really bothering me."

"Mebbe there's a Mancunian under that stuffed shirt after all. The smog's in your blood."

"Probably. Clogging up my arteries."

"Don't give me that bollocks. You're a city bird, same as me."

Sam shrugged. Couldn't deny it.

"Only bloody thing the countryside is good for," Gene continued, "is for getting your end away w'out her parents catching yer. And I'm too old for doing it in the back seat or fishing knickers out of nettle patches."

"And why am I not surprised you'd manage to sully the romance of the great outdoors? We're in Derbyshire now. Pemberly and petrified spars, the wild and untamed-"

"Have a drink, Tyler. Let's try and pretend you're a real man."

Sam sipped, resigned.

"I'll tell you about romance. See there?" Gene gestured towards one of the dark patches of wilderness between them and the lights of Manchester. "Mavis Figworthy, me mate's Austin Seven, made a man out of me. Cracking girl. Bendy as all get out."

"The stuff of epic poetry," Sam agreed, deadpan. Gene ignored him, pointing again.

"Lucy Smith, Citroen 2CV, every night for a fortnight. Thought that one might have been a keeper, but she had her heart set on the bright lights of London."

Sam shifted slightly. Refused to admit, even to himself, that the mental images Gene was conjuring were having any affect on him whatsoever. Concentrated on following Gene's finger towards a shimmering reflection of the moon that Sam assumed was the city reservoir. "Phylis Dobbs. Had an A37 by then, weren't no getting that one in the back seat. Did it behind the dry stone- What have I told you 'bout watering the flowers with me whisky? Give that here."

" _Sergeant_ Dobbs?"

"Don't pull that face. Were twenty-five years ago, and we weren't all born old and ugly. Face like a bulldog chewing a wasp even then," Gene conceded. "But a mouth like a vacuum cleaner and knockers like the foothills of Everest."

"Sergeant _Dobbs_

"Ain't no oil painting yourself, Tyler, but someone must have popped your cherry, once upon a time."

"Susan Collingwood. I took her to a _hotel_."

Gene snorted. "Took you that long? Was that this year or last?"

1986, Sam didn't say. "I was seventeen. I saved up from my after school job. I wanted it to be special."

"Everything in its proper place," Gene sneered. "Where's the romance in that? No sense of adventure, that's your trouble."

Sam bristled; spoke without thinking. Pointed to the thin ribbon of canal he could see emerging from the city. "Michael Holden. Under the Ashton Road bridge."

Gene was silent long enough for Sam to dig his nails into his palms, brace himself against the Cortina. When he finally sighed, Sam let out a tense breath along with him. "Tyler," he said slowly, exasperated. "That's one of them things you're not supposed to mention. Especially not to your superior officer."

"Right. Sorry." But he wasn't. In fact, Sam realised, he was smiling. Relief, possibly. Gene might have a remarkable capacity for taking things in his stride but he never came close to predictable. Still, that little frisson didn't _feel_ like relief. When he next dared glance sideways Gene was looking back, speculative, eyes narrowed.

"No sense of adventure, that's your trouble," Sam goaded.

"Piss off, you little bender." But Gene's look didn't change and Sam shivered. Turned his gaze back to the view. Not as pretty, but definitely easier to look at.

"Strikes me," Gene said slowly, "that you'd likely know as much about a decent blowjob as Phylis."

Sam hissed, eyes flicked back to Gene but couldn't stay long. He felt Gene shrug beside him.

"We're parked up. There's flowers and scenery and stuff. Me prick's expecting some. One of those automatic things, the bell and the slavering dog."

"Pavlov," Sam filled in automatically. "And you're full of shit." Sam was suddenly sure of that. Knew that Gene's explanation was nothing but cover, his usual casual crudity faked.

Gene just shrugged again. "Maybe so, Tyler. I'm also horny, and we've got time to kill. So how 'bout it?"

"How about what?"

"You suck me off."

"And what's in it for me?" But Gene was already tugging Sam out of the moonlight, into the shadows, and Sam followed meekly.

"We'll see, Sammy-boy. We'll see."


End file.
